


The City Breathes

by John_Q_Sample



Category: Labyrinth (1986)
Genre: F/M, Forests, Goblins, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Jareth (Labyrinth) Backstory, Origin Story, Trapped, mothers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-08
Updated: 2018-02-08
Packaged: 2019-03-15 07:49:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 813
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13608849
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/John_Q_Sample/pseuds/John_Q_Sample
Summary: An old woman tells a story for the last time.





	The City Breathes

"There was once," the elderly and dying woman said, "a foolish young woman. She was human. She married a nice young man, another human, and they moved into a lovely little house together. He was happy, but she was not.

"There was once, at the same time, a goblin, and he knew of her unhappiness. And one day, he decided to approach her.

"One would think, in such a world, that he would be met with fear, horror. But the woman had grown up being told fairy tales. She had fallen in love with creatures she was told couldn't exist, and this goblin was one of them. They would meet in private, in the woods because the woods are where all of your secrets are kept. Even here, hmm? Ah, don't give me that look.

"After, oh, I'd say a  _year_ of talking with this goblin, she realized that she was with child, and that wasn't a very good thing, considering that she was married and the person she was married to was human when the child would be half-goblin. But she was not afraid. She never learned how to be afraid. She had the child, and her husband knew immediately that the child was not his own. He also knew of how people would gossip, not to mention the general dislike towards the fey. There were already some  _things_ being said about them, but I will spare you those details this time.

"What, then, was the husband to do? He never saw the face of the goblin, and the woman refused to say who it was. He still loved her, you see, so he didn't want to hurt her...but there was the case of the child. The husband spent many sleepless nights deciding what he might do. Eventually, he thought that he had come up with the perfect solution. He would send the child away.

"One shouldn't send one's child away, even if it isn't  _truly_ one's child and is part goblin. But that is what he did, and we cannot change the past, unfortunately. The husband sent the child away to a special place. It was a place that was alive, and the child was alone.

"When everything began, the house was a simple cottage with furniture that could move around on its own. The child was happy until he began looking out the windows and asking the house what was outside. The house would not respond because it could not. Instead, it grew into a great castle with many beautiful rooms. There were wondrous libraries and everything he could ask for...until he grew tired of the long, lonely passageways and tried to escape. The castle was not happy because he was not happy staying there like he was supposed to. So the castle grew a lovely city all around it, and there were strong gates keeping everyone in. The place was populated with exciting goblins and sweet little houses. He was happy there, but eventually the city grew too small for him. He walked up to the gates of the city and said, 'City, who was once a small house to me so long ago, I demand that you let me leave to explore!'

"The city yielded to him, and the gates opened up. But he was met with an unrelenting forest that reminded him of his mother and how trapped he was in the bright and colorful place, so he went back to the goblins in their sweet little houses and the wondrous libraries.

"Time passed, and he demanded for the city to set him free again. It yielded, and again he was sent into the forest. He made it through, but what he found was a labyrinth.

"It was a massive labyrinth with passages that moved around him to keep him in. He tried again and again to get through, but the labyrinth grew and became more complex the more he studied it. There were riddles and traps and dead ends. He was truly trapped there, and he realized it too harshly.

"There was but one woman who could make it through the labyrinth," the woman said with a proud, shaky smile. "And that was his mother. She was banned from the labyrinth, but she would always don cloaks and go out in the night and then return in the morning before her husband even woke up. The walls would move away from her, and she could walk straight through to the doors of the castle itself."

Jareth broke into a smile. "And her son would always be at the throne waiting for her."

She gently took his bare hand. "Until she was too old to do it anymore," she whispered, her voice hoarse. "And she knew that she would be seeing her son for the last time..."

Jareth's voice shook. "And he knew it, too."

**Author's Note:**

> so i made this big ol post about a theory that i said i wouldn't write a fic for but here i am anyway. basically it boils down to "i don't know mythology but the minotaur was stuck in a labyrinth so the husband of his mother wouldn't have to Deal With It and what if the same thing happened to jareth?" so there


End file.
